Connections: The Quarterly Journal

ISSN 1812-1098, e-ISSN 1812-2973

Bastian Giegerich, Connections QJ 15, no. 2 (2016): 65-72

http://dx.doi.org/10.11610/Connections.15.2.05
Research Article

Hybrid Warfare and the Changing Character

of Conflict
Bastian Giegerich
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London, http://www.iiss.org

Abstract: The idea that international conflict might be seeing more hybrid
warfare and hybrid threats has animated debate among security and de-
fense establishments in the run-up to NATO’s 2016 Warsaw Summit.
While the Alliance has located the issue of hybrid war in the specific con-
text of the Russia/Ukraine crisis and in 2014 triggered efforts to prepare
NATO to effectively meet hybrid warfare threats, the scope of the chal-
lenge is much wider and the core dynamics are often located outside of
the military realm. The article reviews the recent conceptual debates
about hybrid warfare, suggesting that hybrid conflicts defy our attempts
to press them into known categories and locate them clearly on a spec-
trum of war and peace. NATO Member States will have to invest in resili-
ence and conventional deterrence to counter hybrid threats.
Keywords: hybrid threats; conflict; resilience; deterrence; strategy.

From “little green men” in Crimea to “little blue men” in the South China Sea,
the idea that international conflict might be seeing more hybrid warfare and
hybrid threats has animated debate among security and defense establish-
ments in NATO and beyond.1 In fact, the term hybrid warfare has become a bit
of a staple of Europe’s security policy vocabulary. NATO and the EU are working
on strategy papers aimed at strengthening defensive capabilities and prevent-
ing hybrid attacks. National governments drafting security and defense review
documents make frequent reference to the need to address hybrid threats.
Journalists have adopted the term “hybrid war” as a shorthand for Russian tac-

1
Both terms refer to unbadged personnel, see: Vitaly Shevchenko, “‘Little Green Men’
or ‘Russian invaders’?” BBC News, 11 March 2014; Christopher Cavas, “China’s ‘Little
Blue Men’ Take Navy’s Place in Disputes,” Defense News, 2 November 2015.
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Creative Commons
Academies and Security Studies Institutes BY-NC-SA 4.0
 Bastian Giegerich, Connections QJ 15, no. 2 (2016): 65-72

tics in Ukraine, apparently with the assumption that readers already know what
this means.
NATO’s Wales Summit Declaration from 5 September 2014 says Alliance
leaders “will ensure that NATO is able to effectively address the specific chal-
lenges posed by hybrid warfare threats, where a wide range of overt and covert
military, paramilitary, and civilian measures are employed in a highly integrated
design. It is essential that the Alliance possesses the necessary tools and proce-
dures required to deter and respond effectively to hybrid warfare threats, and
the capabilities to reinforce national forces.” 2
While the Wales declaration put the issue of hybrid war in the specific con-
text of the Russia/Ukraine crisis and triggered efforts to prepare NATO to effec-
tively meet such threats, the scope of the challenge is much wider and the core
dynamics are often located outside the military realm. Earlier work conducted
at NATO Allied Command Transformation under the label “Countering Hybrid
Threats” acknowledges as much, but it seems as if the insights generated at the
time were not systematically pursued until Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea
served as a stark reminder.3

Why Should We Care?

With a view to the conflict in Ukraine, analysts come to different assessments.
Anton Dengg and Michael Schurian argue the Ukraine conflict suggests em-
ploying hybrid means to project power might be an important trend that could
shape the character of threats to come.4 The British National Security Strategy
and its supporting Strategic Defence and Security Review, published at the end
of November 2015, state that “the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and
continuing support for separatists in eastern Ukraine through the use of denia-
ble, hybrid tactics and media manipulation have shown Russia’s willingness to
undermine wider international standards of cooperation in order to secure its
perceived interest.” 5 These strategic documents treat hybrid threats both as
tier one challenges, which might affect the UK directly, and as tier two threats,
which would start as a hybrid attack on an ally. Diego Ruiz Palmer summarizes
Russia’s aims as achieving “politically decisive outcomes with, if possible, no or

2
NATO, “Wales Summit Declaration Issued by the Heads of State and Government
participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Wales,” 5 September
2014, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm (accessed 11
December 2015).
3
For a summary of the ACT work, see Michael Miklaucic, “NATO Countering the Hy-
brid Threat,” 23 September 2011, http://www.act.nato.int/nato-countering-the-
hybrid-threat (accessed 11 December 2015).
4
Anton Dengg and Michael Schurian, Zum Begriff der Hybriden Bedrohungen, in Ver-
netzte Unsicherheit – Hybride Bedrohungen im 21. Jahrhundert, ed. A. Dengg and M.
Schurian (Vienna: Landesverteidigungsakademie, 2015), 23–75.
5
HM Government, National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Re-
view 2015. A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom, November 2015, Cm 9161, at
18.

66
 Hybrid Warfare and the Changing Character of Conflict

only a limited and overt use of military force, while being prepared to act mili-
tarily, with devastating effect at the operational level… aim at attaining a deci-
sive political advantage short of war.” 6 The main takeaway is that much of the
activity related to hybrid conflict will take place beneath the threshold that
most Western observers would consider armed conflict, much less war.
Samuel Charap at the International Institute for Strategic Studies suggests
that Russia’s approach would not travel well beyond the specific circumstances
of the conflict in Ukraine. Charap maintains Russia does not have “a hybrid-war
doctrine that could be effectively deployed against NATO” and goes on to warn
talking up the issue of hybrid warfare poses a danger in itself: “Russian strate-
gists believe that the US is willing to risk conducting a limited, hybrid operation
in Russia … just as NATO strategists believe Russia is willing to risk the same on
the territory of [NATO].” 7 Can Kasapoglu, in a rather nuanced analysis, points
out that NATO might not be facing a new Russian military strategy, but the Alli-
ance should realize that “new military thinking that brings about shifts at stra-
tegic, operational, and tactical levels along with doctrinal order of battle and
military strategic culture” has emerged in Russia around the concept of non-
linear warfare.8 Lawrence Freedman offers yet another perspective, submitting
that Russia may well have conducted hybrid warfare in Ukraine, but was actu-
ally not very successful and the advantages offered to the attacker by hybrid
means are exaggerated.9
Aside from the question of whether Russian behavior in Ukraine is a model
for hybrid warfare and, if so, how far can it be generalized and was successful,
another core debate rages around the issue of the appropriateness of the label
itself. To some observers the current preoccupation with hybrid warfare is a
fad at best, and represents intellectual laziness at worst. Proponents of the
former view would insist that we are not actually witnessing anything new, but
merely a modern-day interpretation of the time-honored combination of con-
ventional and unconventional approaches. Supporters of the latter view might
argue that hybrid warfare has become a convenient label to file away all the is-
sues we currently do not understand about the changing character of conflict.
Overall, however, while its nature and importance might well be contested, ig-
noring the evolution of a hybrid approach to conflict would come at the Alli-
ance’s peril.
Frank Hoffman’s writing is a good analytical starting point to clarify the con-
cept, not least because Hoffman was among the writers who coined the term in
its current incarnation. He stresses that hybrid threats amount to much more
6
Diego A. Ruiz Palmer, “Back to the Future? Russia’s Hybrid Warfare, Revolutions in
Military Affairs, and Cold War Comparisons,” Research Paper No. 120 (NATO Defense
College, October 2015), 2.
7
Samuel Charap, “The Ghost of Hybrid War,” Survival 57:6 (2015): 53, 57.
8
Can Kasapoglu, “Russia’s Renewed Military Thinking: Non-Linear Warfare and Reflex-
ive Control,” Research Paper No. 121 (NATO Defense College, November 2015), 11.
9
Lawrence Freedman, “Ukraine and the Art of Limited War,” Survival 56:6 (2014): 7–
38.

67
 Bastian Giegerich, Connections QJ 15, no. 2 (2016): 65-72

than simple combinations of a variety of actors, tactics and approaches. Hybrid

challengers fuse different modes of conflict and it is that new synthesis that
emerges that is difficult to deal with, because it confounds Western binary con-
ceptions of peace and war, of military and non-military means, and of conven-
tional and irregular approaches.10 Commenting recently on the matter, Hoff-
man said Western actors “think of things in black-and-white terms” and still
need to improve significantly at understanding conflict in the spaces in be-
tween, in the grey areas.11 Given that a fusion of conflict patterns, which had
previously been seen as unconnected, is the core of hybrid threats, it logically
follows that hybrid threats and hybrid warfare will come in many guises – this
challenge will continue to evolve.
One does not have to subscribe to a whole new hybrid paradigm to
acknowledge that hybrid warfare and hybrid threats currently do affect Euro-
pean security directly and also can serve as a useful construct to think through
the capabilities to prevent and counter certain contemporary challenges. In it-
self, the combination of regular and irregular forces in one theater of opera-
tions is of course quite a conventional strategy.12 What is new, however, is the
immediate relevance to Europe’s security today. Hybrid actors in the East and
South are directly threatening European security interests, and even appear to
be calling the entire Euro-Atlantic security order into question. Vladimir Putin’s
great power ambitions are incompatible with the principles and value structure
of European security institutions. Yet with regard to the Russian government,
the established methods of international relations, including their military di-
mensions, should still be effective. On the other hand, the caliphate of Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, the barbarity and nihilistic contempt for humanity of the so-
called Islamic State (IS), makes a negotiated solution with this actor seem un-
likely, if not plain absurd. Both are hybrid challengers.
Hybrid wars have therefore reached Europe from two directions, and in very
different form. In the East is a state actor, Russia under Putin, who deliberately
uses non-state means, and in the South is a non-state actor, Islamic State (IS),
whose leaders are attempting to establish structures that are at least similar to
those of a state, and who also have access to means of violence that ordinarily

10
Frank G. Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars (Arlington,
VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 2007), at www.potomacinstitute.org/
images/stories/publications/potomac_hybridwar_0108.pdf (accessed 11 December
2015); James N. Mattis and Frank G. Hoffman, “Future Warfare: The Rise of Hybrid
Wars,” Proceedings Magazine, 132:11 (2005), http://milnewstbay.pbworks.com/f/
MattisFourBlockWarUSNINov2005.pdf (accessed 11 December 2015).
11
Quoted in Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “The ‘new’ type of war that finally has the Penta-
gon’s attention,” Washington Post, 3 July 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/
world/national-security/the-new-type-of-war-that-finally-has-the-pentagons-
attention/2015/07/03/b5e3fcda-20be-11e5-84d5-eb37ee8eaa61_story.html (ac-
cessed 11 December 2015).
12
Max Boot, “Countering Hybrid Warfare,” in Armed Conflict Survey 2015 (Abingdon:
International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2015), 11–20.

68
 Hybrid Warfare and the Changing Character of Conflict

tend to be afforded to states, or more precisely to their armed forces. These

enemies of Europe are hybrid entities in the sense that they are able to use all
available instruments of power in a theater of operations in a coordinated way,
and with at least a certain degree of central control. At the same time, they
pursue the same goals that have always motivated actors in armed conflicts:
gaining a psychological and physical advantage. In this struggle, hybrid warfare
is no different from other forms of war.

Implications of the Hybrid Approach to Conflict and Policy Recom-

mendations
As has been suggested, the implications of a hybrid approach to conflict are
wide-ranging and cut across concepts, material capability aspects, legal mat-
ters, and institutional innovation.13 Hybrid conflict defies the attempt to press
it into known categories. It is not simply in-between state-driven conflict and
non-state-driven conflict, as the recent US military strategy suggests.14 That
particular strategic document does have the advantage, though, of thinking
about conflict in terms of a continuum, rather than suggesting distinct condi-
tions such as war and peace. Hybrid conflict takes place in the intermediate
spaces, or at the seams of traditional ways of thinking.
On the response side, the key conceptual innovation has been the discov-
ery, or perhaps the rediscovery, of resilience as the underpinning principle of
security policy. Resilience in the context of national security refers to the ability
of societies to manage threats and risks, to adapt to them, and to recover from
them should an attack or event occur, without losing the ability to provide
basic functions and services to the members of that society.15 In short, it is the
capacity to degrade gracefully under pressure and then bounce back. Resilience
is foremost a matter of reducing one’s own vulnerabilities. Given that doing so
makes it less likely that hybrid attackers manage to achieve their intended
goals, resilience also contributes to deterrence in a hybrid context by reducing
the potential gains any attacker might hope to reap.
If hybrid war is the evil twin of NATO’s comprehensive approach, an implica-
tion is actually that NATO will have to redouble its efforts to make the compre-
hensive approach more successful and in particular strengthen the links with
other organizations. It is clear that even deciding on responsibilities at the na-
tional level and task-sharing between NATO, the EU, and other organizations
will be anything but easy. Preventing and defending against hybrid threats will
need to involve the entire government on the national and local level, the pri-

13
Patryk Pawlak, “Understanding Hybrid Threats,” European Parliamentary Research
Service (EPRS), 24 June 2015.
14
US Joint Chiefs of Staff, The National Military Strategy of the United States of Amer-
ica 2015 (Washington, DC: DOD, 2015), 4.
15
Oliver Tamminga, “Zum Umgang mit hybriden Bedrohungen. Auf dem Weg zu einer
nationalen Resilienzstrategie,” SWP-Aktuell 92 (2015): 3.

69
 Bastian Giegerich, Connections QJ 15, no. 2 (2016): 65-72

vate sector, and arguably society as a whole. The synergies of the networked
approach, so straightforward in theory, are hard to achieve in practice. There is
no single responsibility for defense against hybrid threats and therefore no ob-
vious center of decision-making. The spectrum is wide, and systematically
checking which organization and body would be in charge of each element of a
response to a hybrid attack will produce a picture that makes it only too clear
that at the national level, and international level, the available instruments are
insufficiently interconnected. As Christian Mölling has argued, a hybrid security
policy is the appropriate answer to hybrid threats in order to meet “adversaries
in the non-military arena to prevent an escalation toward military force.” 16
For NATO, many material and capability-related implications are currently
derived from the hypothetical risk “of Russia being tempted to coerce or un-
dertake limited aggression against an Ally in the expectation that it might not
elicit a NATO response.” 17 It is not necessary to believe that this is actually a
likely course of action for Russia: even the perception, certainly shared by some
of the allies, that it could be a viable strategy for Russia is hugely destabilizing.
NATO will therefore have to go much farther on its path to military adaption
and reassurance. If in 2015 it was noted that Trident Juncture was NATO’s big-
gest exercise in a decade, the following years might bring a requirement to ex-
ercise at a much higher level as far as the number of contributing troops is con-
cerned. NATO headquarters used to be full of officers capable of planning and
implementing multinational troop movements at the corps level and above.
Today, those skills and experience are partly lost and will need to be rebuilt,
just as decision-making structures and bureaucratic procedures need to be
streamlined and adjusted to the fact that significant international movements
of personnel and materiel might have to occur in crisis situations that do not
correspond to a legal state of war.
There is also a need for action in the area of conventional military deter-
rence. This includes the permanent stationing of significant NATO forces in the
territory of at-risk member states, ideally in the form of multinational units.
The deterrence strategy should not be based exclusively on the assumption
that in the event of a crisis, NATO will immediately be able to quickly and easily
strengthen its forces. NATO member states have also begun to build specialized
military formations to support defense against hybrid attack and deal with
hybrid conflict elsewhere. A prominent example is the British 77th Brigade, a
combined Regular Army and Army Reserve unit. Recently formed, the 77 th
Brigade focuses on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. It is designed
to conduct modern information operations, particularly to counter hybrid
warfare.
It should be a priority to systematically identify vulnerabilities to hybrid
threats so that the currently much-vaunted resilience can be strengthened.

16
Christian Mölling, “From Hybrid Threats to Hybrid Security Policy,” Ethics and Armed
Forces 2 (2015): 2.
17
Ruiz Palmer, “Back to the Future,” 10.

70
 Hybrid Warfare and the Changing Character of Conflict

This may include marginalized groups in society, who may be targets for radi-
calization efforts or ideological mobilization. It may be a case of energy de-
pendencies that can be turned into means of exerting political pressure. Seri-
ous investment is needed in the area of intelligence analysis, security foresight,
and weak signals. Another important area of action for defense against hybrid
threats is early warning, and to produce a situation assessment that is appro-
priate for the character of this form of conflict. Here it will be necessary to
share and evaluate findings and results of national intelligence service work
more rapidly in the international framework within the EU and NATO than is
currently the case. Even weak signals pointing to a hybrid attack may consoli-
date into a pattern if coordination of this kind takes place.
Building up capability in this area will enable NATO to better understand the
hybrid threat phenomenon, develop metrics to get a grip on events, systemati-
cally address vulnerabilities, and contemplate how hybrid threats might de-
velop in the future. NATO currently lacks the funding mechanisms to take ad-
vantage of open-source information that could be provided by think tanks and
expert analysts. NATO’s public diplomacy budget is spent on events that may or
may not have analytical value. NATO ACT has an academic outreach program,
but its activities seem better at forming and maintaining networks than using
agile partnerships to insert external analysis in NATO processes as and when
needed.
Information operations are an integral part of hybrid warfare used to form
narratives and, generally, to influence political opinion-making among the tar-
get population. Strategic communication offers an opportunity to counteract
this, but only if it is coherent, consistent, fast, and precise. While this is cer-
tainly not a simple feat, it is surprising to see how difficult NATO and EU seem
to find even basic coordination. For example, on 22 June 2015 the EU adopted
the Action Plan on Strategic Communication. Back in July 2014, NATO set up
the Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Latvia for the same pur-
pose. The EU action plan makes no reference to this, while the work plan for
2015 on the NATO center’s website does not indicate any prioritization of co-
operation with the EU.18 Meanwhile, however, both organizations have stated
that close coordination is needed in precisely this area. With a challenge that
confounds traditional categories of analysis, decision-makers and experts alike
will need to be creative. The point is not that an event like the invasion of Cri-
mea necessarily forms a template for future conflict, but that the principles on
which they were based will inform the next challenger and hybridity as an un-
derlying factor in conflict is here to stay.

18
European Union, “Action Plan on Strategic Communication,” Ref.
Ares(2015)2608242, 22 June 2015, http://eap-csf.eu/assets/files/Action%20PLan.pdf
(accessed 31 October 2015); NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence,
http://www.stratcomcoe.org/about-us (accessed 31 October 2015).

71
 Bastian Giegerich, Connections QJ 15, no. 2 (2016): 65-72

About the author

Dr. Bastian Giegerich is Director of Defence and Military Analysis at The
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. He is a contributor
to the IISS’s Military Balance and Strategic Survey. From 2010 until 2015,
Bastian worked for the German Ministry of Defense, both in research and
policy roles, while also serving as the IISS Consulting Senior Fellow for European
Security. He holds a MA in Political Science from the University of Potsdam and
a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics. Bastian
is the author and editor of several books on European security and defense
matters. His articles have appeared in journals such as Survival, Security Studies
and International Politics, among others, as well as in various print media
outlets. Bastian has taught International Relations, Military Studies, and Public
Administration courses at the London School of Economics, the University of
Potsdam, and the University of Kassel. E-mail: Giegerich@iiss.org.

72